Hoot
by Enigmatised
Summary: Nagi can't handle losing his voice. [[ nagi owl karako scar chain ]]


**Rated T because well... it is what it is. Don't feel it's justified to rate it M because anyone who's familiar with Deadman Wonderland already knows what the series is like for violence.**

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The man jolted upright in the bed, shivering and with heavy bags around his saucer-like eyeballs despite having slept for eighteen hours straight. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. Eyes darting around as if he were hunted prey, he clutched his throat and wheezed harshly. The skin felt rough on his hands and painfully sore on his throat. Looking down at his palms, he nodded to himself, acknowledging a silent truth of what could be the only explanation for the fact that his palms were covered in coagulating blood. He let himself fall backwards, collapsing into the hard mattress. Staring at the ceiling for hours, silent tears trickled down the cheeks of his angular face, knowing that he would never again speak the words, 'I love you'.

The door opened in the corner of the ward, and the patient grimaced as he propped himself up on his elbows. He furrowed his brows at the bespectacled nurse, yet she appeared least concerned as she plonked herself down at a desk, ignoring him in preference of the high-tech computer system. When she had finished typing, she spun around on her stool with legs crossed tactically beneath a white mini skirt. She shut her eyes and relaxed her shoulders as she blew out a steady stream of smoke towards the patient, then stubbed out her cigarette in a dirty ashtray.

"You never caught the punishment game, did you Nagi?" she grinned, bearing only slightly yellowed teeth untouched by the crimson lipstick she wore.

Nagi's thin brown eyes thinned further. He would have spat, but that was disgusting and he considered himself above such behaviour. He turned his head slightly to the side, allowing his curls of black hair to fall into his face.

There was no escaping it though. The upbeat, childish music as his 'nurse' clicked 'play' on the recorded footage was enough to induce terror in even the most hardened deadmen. Those childish critters in the opening sequence took on a whole new meaning. Never again would a cartoon animal look harmless and friendly.

He wouldn't let her see him cry. Nagi forced himself to watch the hologram. He cringed, seeing his own limp body shackled into a steel chair. TV Nagi did not move, for he knew there was no escape. Besides, it gave their sick, twisted audience more gratification to see a loser trying to escape fate. It was impossible to do, of course. After all, people watched this shit for the so-horrible-you-can't-take-your-eyes-off-it gore.

A comically large and brightly coloured slot machine was wheeled in and placed in front of the hologram Nagi in the chair. The 'nurse' was there, holding a tight grip on the lever and grinning as she stared deep into his slumping, exhausted face.

The same nurse in the hospital room with him was unable to tear her lustful, excited eyes away from their likenesses on the screen.

Nagi bit down hard on his tongue, filling his mouth with the taste of blood as he watched the pictures spinning and spinning until she pressed down hard on the one-armed bandit. The high pitched tinkling as the slots rolled around slowed down, and Nagi saw the all too familiar crude images of disembodied arms, legs, kidneys…

He gulped, seeing it line up a match of three music note symbols and the caption 'voice' in bubbly purple lettering.

Within seconds, the steel chair became a prison of an operating table and the vomit-inducing procedure performed for all to see. Nagi was knocked unconscious immediately with a sharp needle of anaesthesia to the forearm. Cameras honed in on the man's throat as it was sliced open cleanly with a surgical blade, allowing blood to dribble down the coarse skin of his neck.

Nagi gagged and coughed up mucus. It wasn't the first time he'd seen the Penalty Game – it being an unspoken staple of Deadman Wonderland's workings – but the fact that this was _his own vocal chords_ being _sliced in half_ was too much to stomach.

The nurse smiled, seeing her work being appreciated.


End file.
